Lock. I might continue so till to-morrow Morning, and when I wake I might find you stil walking up Stairs in Buskins. Aye Sir, and all this, and fifty times more of fifty sorts, all Jumbled, all Pindaric, all like Lucretius world. One Chapter is of Friendship; The next of Nine and twenty Songs of Boetius; One of Moderation; The next of Canibals. From the use of Cloathing away we Scud to a Character of Cato junior: And from Remarks upon Virgil to a Dissertation concerning Coaches. This Leaf is upon Experience, turn it but over, you are upon Physionomy, and among lame People. Here is the Resemblance that Children have to their Fathers, and there a Defence of Seneca and Plutarch. In short no man ever dreamt so wildly as you have writ, without the least regard to Method. This Chanet very justly charges you with in his Treatise of the Operations of the Understanding; When he tells You, that whereas every judicious Man Studys order, there is nothing but Confusion in your whole Book. Père Malbranch, I think, strikes You home, and Scaliger —
Montaigne. Scaliger was a Pedant that thought himself a Prince. Chanet and Malbranch were People of your own Trade, meer Metaphysicians, yet Disagreeing in their Notions; The Priest condemns me, but to shew his Judgment: it is with Seneca and Tertullian, good Company however: T’other accuses me only for want of Method, the thing in which I glory. I have observed that there is an Abcidarian Ignorance that precedes Knowledge and a Doctoral Ignorance that comes after it. A Man that writes freely, as I do, as he is in danger to be persecuted by them both, ought to have the Courage to dispise them both; Method! our life is too short for it. The general rules even of Morality are commonly too long and tedious. How many young Scholars have been debauched before they have gone thro Aristotles Precepts upon Temperance? and how many more might have fallen into the worst Excess imaginable before they had quite read over Plato’s Dialogues between Socrates and his Pupil Alcibiades? Method in the Sense You mean it, is the thing I contemn; Tis poor, tis little: I put my thoughts down, just as they occurred to me. Could I have better Method than that which the course of my life gave me, and the order of things as they presented themselves to my View? How would You have had me range them? Is it not the Variety it self that pleases while it Instructs? if the black, the White, the Red, and the Green, were laid upon distinct parts of the Canvas, where would be the Harmony of Colouring, or the tout-ensemble of the Picture? You may see the Painters Method upon his Palatte, but he condemns it when he would shew his Science. If all your Lillies were collected together in one Bed, next your House, then all your Roses in another, and all your Sun-Flowers in a third, who would admire the beauty of your Garden? However your Picture and your Garden are stil the Effects of Art, and Art her Self is gross and poor where her ways of working are seen, She appears most lovely where she most imitates her Mistress, Nature; But contemplate the great Goddess her self, Ipsa suis pollens opibus: Hills, Cities, Woods, Rivers so situate, that the irregularity makes the beauty of the Prospect; and at Night consider the Copes of Heaven, glorious with Myriads of Stars; not set in ranks, spread into Squares, or circled in rounds, but all shining in a beautiful Superiority to Number and Order.
Lock. Oh! brave Seigneur of Gascony; Why this was a most noble rant; the by the by, the last part of it was stolen from my Lord Bacon.
Montaigne. It may be so, and he perhaps took it from Petrarch, and Petra[r]ch borrowed it from Cicero, and Cicero again might have it from Socrates, and Socrates from David. If I am in the Possession of a Medal, or a Jewel, what care I if it came out of the Arundel Collection, or was taken by the Duke of Bourbon in the Plunder of the Vatican. If Irene wore it in her Bulla, or even if Memmius brought it to Rome from Corinth? Truth and reason lye in common to all the World, like Air and Water.
Lock. Hola, good Seigneur, I remember you have said (and indeed I liked the saying till I now find you contradict it,) that we Praise no Creature, besides our Selves except for his Natural Qualities and Endowments. We commend a Horse for being Vigorous and Handsom, not for the finess of his Harness, or Caparisons; A Greyhound for his swiftness, not for the richness of his Collar; And a Hawk for his wing, not for his Jesses or his Bells. But we dont say you do the same in regard to Man; He has a Magnificent Palace, rich Equipage, or fine Cloths. Alas! these are things about Him, but not in him. Now apply this to your way of Writing (the point to which with much ado I have brought You) Montaigne has noble Ideas, but they are taken from Plato; fine Stories, but from Plutarch; great Expression, but from Tully and Seneca; and right Quotation, but from Horace & Virgil. Now, do any of these Excellencies any more belong to You than the Harness to your Horse, the Collar to your Greyhound, or the Jesses to your Hawk? and would it not follow, that if Plato, Plutarch, Cicero, Seneca, Horace and Virgil should each reclaim his own, Montaigne hath writ no Book? Speak, Sir, Answer me Logically. You are not used to Pause for a reply.
Montaigne. Faith I think he has me a little upon the Hip with his Logic. Where one cannot perfectly excuse, all one can do is to recriminate. You know, Sir, I never was a great Admirer of Logic, no friend to your Ergoismes. I have told the World more than once that I had rather be a good Horseman, than a subtil Logician. You begin as I said to you just now, with propositions, which no body denys; and go on to prove Paradoxes, which no body will admit. A Man is not a flitch of Bacon, concedo; Montaigne did not write his own Book, Negoy without the least regard to Bocardo or Baralipton. Can I answer your Question fairer than by returning Your Question; Who did write Mr. Locks Book?
Lock. Why, Mr. Lock himself; I tell my Readers almost at the Beginning of it, that I spin my Work out of my own Thoughts.
Montaigne. Spin! so does a Spider out of her own Bowells; and yet a Cobweb is good for nothing else that I know of but to catch flies, and stanch cut thumbs. I am so far from concealing what you call Thefts, that I glory in them. I have made other Mens thoughts my own, and given them to the World in greater beauty than I received them from their Authors. Let me be compared to a Bee, who takes something from every Flower and Shrub, and by that various labour collects one of the greatest Ingredients of Humane Health, and the very Emblem of Plenty. But to come nearer to You Mr. Lock, you like many other writers, deceive your self in this point, and as much a Spider as you fancy your Self, you very often cast your Web upon other Mens Textures.
Lock. What then? I make the Work my own, by not knowing it was theirs. What ever may have been written by others, if I have not read their Books, what I write is as much my own Invention as if no Man had thought the same thing before me. But you, Sir, have only to go to your Commonplace book, find out some Excerpta, and —
Montaigne. Why, the best one can do is but to compose; I hope you do not pretend to create.
Lock. I tell you what I write is my own. Yours is at best but Compilation.
Montaigne. Why, there is another mistake now, a trick which your own Understanding puts upon You. Your Ideas, as you call them, however you have endeavored to set them right, were so mixed and blended long before you began to write, in the great variety of things that fell under their Cognizance, that it was impossible for you to Distinguish what you invented, from what you remembred. Plato says that all knowledge is only reminiscence, and a Wiser Man than he, that there was nothing New under the Sun: Besides this, My good Mr. Lock, Self Love, natural Vanity, and desire or Acquisition help us extremely in these sort of Thefts. In the bounding our Estates, we are pretty partial to our Selves; Our Neighbors Acre on the left hand, if taken in, would make our Garden on that side, Square; and if the Wood on the right could be added to our Grove, that improvement would give it perfect Symetry and beauty. the here the Civil Power has already determined what is ours and what is not. But as to the extent of our Knowledge, where neither Nature nor Law has made any Prescription, and Human Curiosity is stil pressing forward, we take all that comes fairly in our way, and either think it Originally our own, or at least not trouble our Selves whose it was before it came into our Possession. Descartes in the middle of the Joy he felt when he was certain he doubted of every thing, and only knew h
is own Ignorance; was just in the same piteous Estate Pyrrho found himself Two thousand Years before: And when he gave Us his subtil matter, be only new Christened Aristotles Materia prima, Gassendi and Rohault, are but Epicurus and Lucretius revived. As to your Self, Mr. Lock, you have either Copied pritty servilly from your Predecessors, or happened not only upon their Thought, but their method (of which you are so fond). You seem to me to have worked in the same frame with Dun Scotus, Suares and Baronius, nay faith honest Smiglesius and even Burgersdicius may come in for a Snack with my Landlord. But these Petty Larcenarys you System makers confess the last of any Men; Till you are contradicted, the Book is all your own, and one continued Scheme. But when you are Pressed, you call Friends of all kinds to your Assistance. While Malbranch writes against the force of Imagination, and the impression which things too lively Painted may make upon our Judgment, his Discourse is filled with that very Imagery and Painting from which he diswades Us, and the strength of his Argument consists in the beauty of his Figures. And when you Seem to have least regard to Orators and Poets, you have recourse to Both for your very turn of Style and manner of Expression. Parblut Mr. Lock, when You had writ half your Book, in favor of your own Dear Understanding, you quote Cicero to prove the very Existence of a God.
Lock, I am not to answer for Malbranch, but for my self. I make use of Authors only as they come into my subject, but I never go out of my way to bring them in.
Montaigne. I wont dispute that; but in my Opinion you write best when you steal most. When you contradict the Antients you fell into the very Error you blame. When you ask, what more exquisite Jargon could the Wit of Man invent, than this Definition; the Act of being in Power as far forth as in Power; within ten Pages you give us as many definitions less Intelligible; and what miserable Work do you make of it while you are Puzling Tully with the Dutchmans telling what Beweeging was, when Mynheer explains it to him in Latin Actus entis in potentiâ qua in potentiâ?
Lock, Well and is not it Nonsense?
Montaigne. And is not it Nonsense of your own producing?
Lock, I cite it only to prove the Absurdity of the Definition.
Montaigne, And when ever I cite an Author it is to show his Excellence: There is one Essential difference now in our Two ways of writing.
Lock. And faith to do You Justice what ever you write or find written by any body else, you putt it off with a most noble assurance. I cannot but think it must have been a Pleasant Scene enough to see you come Strutting thro by the great Hall of your own Chateau in the Périgord, while one of your Servants or Tenants Sons were reading your Works with an Audible voice to the Country, who came in to hear the Wisdom of the Seigneur de Montaigne, Bayliff of Bourdeaux: How truly they Spelt and pronounced the Names Demetrius Poliocetes, Publius Sulpitius Galba, and Albuquerque Viceroy of Emanuel King of Portugal; All brought together as if they had lived at the same time, and were as well acquainted as the three Kings of Cologn; How often the reader Stop’d and Admired, while you were pleased to expound to them your Quotations of Greek and Latin Sentences, Shreds of ancient Orations, and Pieces of broken Verses; the effect of a good Father’s Care, who taught you the Language ty rote; and of a lively Memory that retained a Million of Idea’s, and (as I said just now) gave them out again with very little Judgment, confused and Promiscuous (true French by the way, and good Grammar sometimes wanting). Confess Seigneur, that it must have been very Theatrical, your dear Self all the while the Hero of the Play. The Descent of your Family, your Coat of Arms, the High Tower in which you lodged, the rage that waited on You, all faithfully represented: And your Dialogue with your Catt so recited, that if Laughter were not the incommunicable Property of Man, Puss might be really allowed to smile upon so fantastic a subject.
Montaigne. Why, faith, Mr. Lock, if you would have me, you must take me Altogether, Gallant or Débonnaire, Serious or Comical just in the Humour I happened to be when I wrote; too confident perhaps in the Strength of my own natural Parts, and too partial to my own Vanities, yet free enough in confessing my defeats, and submitting my judgment to the Censure of my Friends. I dont dislike what I heard one of your Countrymen said of me, that by the Style of many Authors he could imagine at least something of their temper, and guess at their inclinations and Virtues; But when he read me, he fancyed he knew my Person, and that he had seen and Con verst with me in France, the I dyed above one hundred Years before he was born. My Ideas, as you Observe, are confused and Promiscuous; But stil describing or Painting something, producing the Picture of my Self and a Thousand People more. But Mr. Lock, your Work is meer Grotesque, half images of Centaures and Splynxes trailing into Flowers and branches; Satyrs and Masks interlaced into Knots with Cupids, all imperfect, and only so joined that the Chain of the Work is stil continued. But however since You are pleased to give the Comody out of my Writings, I am sure you will not take it ill if I furnish the farce, the Petite Piece, as we call it out of Yours.
Suppose, Mr. Lock, you returned to your own Chamber from the business, the Visits, and Pleasures of the Day; Your Nightgou[n] on, your Books before You. John, say you to Your Man, You may go down and Sup, shut the Door. John, who at his leasure hours had been dabling in your Book, and consequently admired the Wisdom of it, reasons thus upon the matter, the Senses first let in particular Ideas into the Sensorium, the brain, or as my Master admirably expresses, into the drawing room; which are from thence Conveyed to the hitherto empty Cabinet of the Mind, right! The vibration of the Air and its Undulation strike the Tympanum of my Ear, and these Modifications being thus conveyed to my Sensorium, certain words in the English language (for no other do I understand) produce a Determined conception. John you may go down and Sup, shut the Door, now John has been a common Apellative to Millions of Men these many ages, from Apostles, Emperors, Doctors and Philosophers, down to Butlers, and Valets de Chambre and Persons of my Quality; some of whom however Christened John, and commonly called Jack but pass for that — Now to none of these could my Master speak, for they are either dead or Absent, it must therefore be to me — Doubtfull again: for my Masters own name is John, and being a whimsical Person he may probably talk to himself — No that cant be neither, for if he had commanded himself, why did he not obey himself, if he would go down, why does he sit stil in the Elbow chair — t’was certainly therefore meant to me John, not to him John: well then go down and sup, go down — Whither? to the Centre of the Earth? there I may sup with Fiends on brimstone broth. To the bottom of the Thames? there I may Sup with Cod and Mackerell, and as Hamlet says not Eat but be Eaten. To the Coal hole or woodhouse? there indeed I may find what will dress a Supper, but nothing else to the present purpose of my own Supping. It must therefore be to the Kitchi[n] and in this determined Sense I will receive my Masters kind admonition — Now, again, you may go down and sup; why if I may, then I may not go down, the liberty of my Volition being undetermined, and the action of going down, quatenus going down, being in it self indifferent to me. Aye! but you may go down and Sup, the Proposition seems conjonctive, I cannot sup without going down, [and the going down] was indifferent, yet Supping is far from being so, for I am really and sensibly and feelingly a Hungry; besides you may go down and Sup is not a bare Permission but a Civiler command; And the I may chuse whether I will sup or no when I am down, yet I ought to go down when my Master enjoins it in so obliging a manner — But now comes an essential difficulty, which however by right ratiotination I hope to overcome. John you may go down and Sup, shut the Door, the Door I take to be a Combination of Planks in an Oblong Figure, artfully compacted by the Skill of a Carpenter, and set upon Compages, Hooks, or Hinges of Iron or brass by the additional Science or labour of the Smith with a Lock applicable to the Action which my Master enjoins me, of Shutting it. This Action is to be determined by my Eye to find out this Lock, and by my hand to touch it. But now again am I, as the order in which the words are Placed may import, first to go down and Sup, and then to shut the Door: No surely, for in the mean time there may come such a w
ind from the Stair head, that my Master may catch his Death before I have filled my Belly; There is certainly therefore an Anacronism, or at least an unguarded transposition, in these words, the regular conception of them must be thus taken, not John go down and Sup, shut the Door, but John shut the Door, go down and sup; Well so far I think I am right. But now as to shutting the Door there is a lock in the inside, and there is a bolt on the Outside, which implyes two Modus’s of performing this Action: If I lock the door on this side, how the Devil can I go down except I was a fairy, and would creep thro the Key hole; If I bolt it on the other side, I shut my Master in, which sure he could never intend. Two Modus’s I said there were, yet neither of these are proper to the present purpose; there must therefore be a Third, which I believe by a happy concurrence of Ideas I have found out, that is, neither to Lock the Door on this Side, or to bolt it on the t’other, but to apply it as close as may be to the Doorcase, and to leave it in that position, which I take to be equivalent to what my Master meant by the expression of Shutting the Door.
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